


Abandonment

by LilyEllison



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Elektra Lives AU, F/M, Frank Says Yes AU, I think I'm a bad person for writing this, I wrote it anyway, Temporary Frank Castle/Karen Page, Temporary Matt Murdock/Elektra Natchios, but I did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21640498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyEllison/pseuds/LilyEllison
Summary: In every universe, the ending's the same. Two separate AUs, intertwined.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Karen Page
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	Abandonment

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Quietshade for the encouragement!

They don’t leave New York that first night. Of course they don’t.

Elektra wants to — to rip off the band-aid and go — but Matt pleads exhaustion. He can’t take another step. But his apartment is too much, too full of ghosts, so they grab what they need and leave for a hotel. She checks them in as Mr. and Mrs. Nelson and he has to fight hard against the urge to throw up.

They have sex that first night. Of course they do.

They have been holding back for so long and they have just escaped death against all odds. It should be incredible; it should be everything he’s ever wanted. But his fingers are burning with the memory of a precious face cradled in his hand, and tears drip from the corners of his eyes.

He’s free now. With her like with no one else. There’s nothing to tie him down, no reason to hold the devil in.

It hurts like hell.

It’s hell.

* * *

Karen can’t believe it when Frank says yes. “Make it mean something,” and he does, he gets out of the bed and crosses the room to her.

“I have to take care of Russo,” he says, “and the girl. That’s on me. But after...I’ll come for you.”

She leaves the hospital barefoot and trembling.

When his text finally comes, she is ready. A getaway bag stowed under her desk. It is safer to tell Matt and Foggy nothing. She stands up from her desk and makes an excuse about a stakeout. It is safer to tell them nothing. But when she hugs Foggy, she slips a note in his pocket anyway.

Matt is busy in his office, fingers moving over his braille terminal. “Bye, Matt,” she says from the doorway, and she’s proud that her voice doesn’t shake. But when he lifts his head up, his beautiful face is full of concern anyway, and she makes herself leave before she has to lie.

Frank drives most of the time. She sleeps. She tells herself it’s three years of sleep debt finally catching up to her, but she knows she just can’t bear to keep watching the rearview mirror.

“You OK?” he asks one morning. He’s sprawled in the hotel bed and she’s coaxing coffee from the single-serve machine.

“I’m fine,” she says, knowing he can’t tell for sure it’s a lie.

“You don’t miss...the city?”

“Of course I do. It’s always hard to—to leave home. But we’ll make a new one.”

And she thinks that satisfies him. But a few minutes later, he breaks the silence again.

“You say his name, you know. In your sleep.”

She doesn’t sleep much at all, after that.

* * *

When Matt wakes up in the morning, Elektra isn’t there. He feels like an asshole at the relief that floods through him.

He waits until housekeeping finally kicks him out of the room, but she doesn’t come back. He’s not surprised — he’s been certain since he first felt the cold sheets next to him that she is long gone. He wonders now if she was planning it from the moment they checked in.

He walks slowly, meanderingly, back to his apartment, every whisper of his footsteps on the sidewalk an apology to the city he thought he was ready to forsake.

When he gets home, hours later, he puts his things away, packs his suit carefully back into the trunk. All except his helmet.

He puts that into a paper bag. He reaches for his phone.

* * *

Frank leaves her a couple days later, in a parking lot in Michigan, with a full tank of gas and a thermos of hot coffee.

“You saved my life,” he says, pressing the keys into her hand. “I’m not gonna ruin yours.”

And she knows she should argue, but the words get choked in her throat.

“Will you be OK?” she asks, finally.

He smiles crookedly. “I got unfinished business here,” he says, his head tilting toward the bar behind him. And she has a million questions but she can’t spare the time to ask a single one. So she kisses him sadly and she gets in the car and she checks the rearview mirror until he is a speck, until he is gone.

When she gets to Hell’s Kitchen, late at night, she parks illegally on the street in front of Matt’s place, trying to work up the courage to get out of the car.

Before she can, he’s knocking on the window and she jumps, her heart in her mouth. She opens the door and gets out and she’s bracing for him to yell at her, but he just opens his arms and she stumbles into them.

He holds her in the street as drivers swerve around them and a cabbie yells obscenities and she’s home.

She’s back home.


End file.
